Sunday, October 19, 2008

Grilling socks in the wind shelter

Autumn is an unexpectedly good time of the year to go on excursions. The trees explode in shades of orange, the nordic sun shines at an unrealistically low angle, and although the air is cold, that also means that the season for pesky mosquitoes is over. Marcus and I meant to look for a wind shelter out in the forests in Kolmården a long time ago, but now seemed the perfect time. So just before lunch today, we drove out to a a lake called Stora Älgsjön with a couple of friends to look for one of the wind shelters we found a picture of online.

Although we had a very good and detailed map of the area, the shelter itself wasn't easy to find. We knew nothing more than that it stood in an area called Drömgruvan, on a height with the view of the water. But after walking around the area to no avail, we returned to the car almost disappointed... until we discovered that Marcus' dad's GPS was in the glove compartment. A few calls to a friend for the shelter's coordinates and we found out why we couldn't find the shelter where we were looking: we were at the wrong side of the lake!

We crossed the ravine on foot, hopping over little creeks of water and trying to get a good foot grip over the slippery moss. That wasn't easy with shopping bags in hand containing our lunch and I managed to get my left shoe immersed in a bog (wrong choice of shoes – I should have taken my Goretex boots). What's more, once up on the other side of the lake, we found out that there was actually a more friendly pathway to the shelter. But it ceased to matter; taking in the view was like reaping a reward.

Two wind shelters face each other, with a fire pit in between them. From the precipice, you have a pretty good view of the lake below. It was really an excellent camping site; we'll keep that in mind for any future camping trips.

The view from up there was beautiful! The wind made small waves on the lake and the sun was surprisingly warming for an October day. Most importantly, we had the opportunity to dry our socks on the campfire glow. Here's Lovisa and me, "grilling our socks" over the embers:

My sock took some time to dry up, but it did after some time. Then it was time for lunch. Eventually, we used the forked stick I used to dry my sock with to turn the sausages with. But hey, I heard fire was disinfecting! :-D They didn't complain about any weird foot sweat flavors, or we were likely too hungry to mind.

There was also a lot of wind coming from the lake, which caused our grill to smoke – and caused the smoke to blow into Calle's face as he was busy grilling our sausages.

And after lunch, without fail wherever you might be in this country: coffee time. Brought to you by Nescafé... or rather, Gevalia, the leading brand of instant coffee in Sweden. That's my sock hanging from the roof of the shelter, by the way: